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06 April 2009 | Posted in Allan's Blog
With the 12 Hours of Sebring just behind me, I must say that it's fantastic to finally get the 2009 racing season underway. It's been quite a long time since Petit Le Mans 2008, and since then we've been busy testing in Europe with the new Audi R15 TDI but also just planning our 2009 season.
Sebring itself is definitely the best sports car race in North America. And not just because of the intensity of the race, it's also the fans, the atmosphere, the 150,000 that pack in during the race week and live the experience just like the mechanics, engineers, and the drivers. All of this makes it an extremely special place and this year was going to be no different.
In fact, this was the most intense Sebring race I've ever competed in. This is principally because the competition was so, so strong with Acura coming in to LMP1 but also Peugeot coming back for revenge after last year, plus our new R15 TDI. It added up to a tremendous race. And that's only in LMP1, you've the LMP2 battle between the Dysons, that actually finished second last year overall and also the Acura Fernandez, and then there’s the GT2 class. GTs is just a great battle whichever way you look at it. That's looking to be a fantastic championship this season.
But as we turned up in Sebring it was actually quite an eye-opener for us. Not necessarily because we were unprepared but because in Europe this winter it's been tremendously wet and cold. And we've had four major tests; however, all of them have been blighted by the weather. So when we arrived into North America and suddenly we're in the mid-80s Fahrenheit with blue, sunny skies, then it certainly was different conditions than what we had been used to in testing.
That meant that when we turned our first laps in anger at the Sebring circuit, it sort of shook the cobwebs out and told us very, very quickly where we needed to work on the car. Not just necessarily on balance but also some of the small little items, the comfort items within the cockpit, the small areas that you just find out when you're actually in competition that you never notice when you’re just in nice cool weather testing. We got to know the car differently than we had before she was shipped from Germany to Florida.
And the R15 TDI…it looks so different! It's got a V10 engine instead of a V12. The regulations have meant that we’ve got a little bit less power but also we've got a much narrower rear wing. Ergonomically it’s different, and overall, the car looks very, very radical relative to the R10 TDI.
And all of those things together mean that from a driving point of view that it's much more agile, it's more on its toes, you’re always dancing on the pedals, and you’re always working with the steering wheel. But the thing reacts in such an agile manner that as a driver, you can hustle this car, you can throw it around, you can drive really hard into corners; you can work with it. And when you need to bring something special out of it -- in qualifying, for example, you really can do things with the car we’d never dreamt of before.
We were going to be heading into the 12 hours race finding out whether we’d done enough compared to both Peugeot and Acura as this was the first time that we'd all seen each other. It was quite nice; I drove down the pit lane for the first practice and I got a big wave from the mechanics and engineers from Peugeot, so the battle, I would suggest, was going to resume very, very quickly just as if Petit was last week.
In between the actual tests and the race though, there was an important announcement that I joined up with Jim Russell Racing School, and so we'll be doing some work out there in California with the racing school at the fantastic Sears Point track in Sonoma, and getting involved actively but also with the Audi Driving Experience they administer. The ability to work with the school and have an impact on the programme and their students is one I look forward to.
This is a very important School because it goes back to the traditions and the histories of 1957 when Jim Russell first started out before making it into a worldwide brand. And that was, I would say nowadays, is still as relevant as it was then. And you just take a look at the drivers that came through, like Emerson Fittipaldi for example. The names of the school’s graduates are quite legendary in that respect.
That announcement took place on Friday – the day before the race, and I woke up Saturday morning with great anticipation of the task ahead of us. We sat second on the grid, having found a very good balance with the car. On pole position was de Ferran in the Acura -- third was the Peugeot, with the three of us split by about a 10th and a half of a second. Now, that proved to me that, first of all, the Acura was quick over one lap.
I was going to wait and see whether it was good to be quick over the race distance, so I was confident with our car but I think their car; there was a question mark over that. The Peugeot, we knew was very, very good but for me it was very important to try and lead at the beginning, just to, again, lay down that marker to say, “Right boys, you're going to have to be very good to beat us.”
I got the jump on Gil going into the Turn 1 and so I was able to pull out a bit of a gap in the first stint. But then the Peugeot revealed one of their strategy cards -- they didn't change tyres at the first stint. Now, you’ve got to remember in the R10 TDI days, we never double stinted a tyre except at Le Mans. And part of that was strategy in America. But also part of it was just the way we worked with the car. And so they immediately went to try to double stint their tyres. That meant they came out ahead of me. And I had a real close battle with Pedro Lamy and it took about eight or nine laps before I managed to scythe down the inside going down to Turn 17.
That was a really, really brave manoeuvre, I have to say, because as soon as I overtook him then there was a GT car, popped up right in the entry point to 17 and I had to take avoiding action to get by him. That was a very good example for me of how the race was going to go. By that point it was down to us and the Peugeot's.
The Acura, quick in qualifying, still needs time on the track. It's not as quick as us in the corners and I think their big front tyre scheme isn't necessarily working to the advantage they hoped it was going to right now, because they seem to struggle both in the corner and getting out of the corner, which makes them a bit slower on the straight. But I would certainly expect Acura to come up to performance later on in the season.
Acuras aside, Dindo and Tom had some fantastic battles. In fact, the gap was never more than a few seconds all of the way through until later on when one of the Peugeots had a puncture. And with three hours to go – that, normally, you would think was a deciding factor – but in reality what it did was it knocked them out of one pit stop, which meant we had to make one extra splash and dash in comparison to their full stint stops. And if it ran the green and there were only three yellows in the whole race then it was going to be really nip and tuck.
Dindo and Tom had a really, really good runs and then it was my turn behind the wheel once more. When I got back in I was about 24 seconds behind Bourdais. Bourdais had just put in the fastest lap of the race at 43.1. Now, everybody in the top six went quicker in the qualifying but at 43.1…now that was very impressive.
I have to say, that time, I did a 44.3 and the engineer radioed to me and said, “Peugeot is doing 43.1.” And I thought, “This is going to be tight.” I knew we were working it but I thought it was going to be tight. We then got down to some fast laps though and I was getting information that I had to put a 48 second gap to the Peugeot prior to my extra splash and dash if we were going to actually win this race.
I was at 36 seconds when I got that information, so I had to try and gain 12 seconds minimum. If I could stretch it to 55 seconds, then we were clear. If you watched the race you’ll know we were already lapping quickly. Being asked to find handfuls of seconds when you’re already pushing is harder than it might sound.
The car, though, was just stunning. It was exceptionally balanced and very consistent. It allowed me really to push in traffic, not to take excessive risks but to take really big, deep braking, overtaking manoeuvres that normally you wouldn't do at the end of a 12 hour race, but I was on the limit.
In fact, that last hour -- the last stint I did, it was just a full qualifying stint. Every lap was right on that fine line because it had to be. We wanted to win this race. We needed to win this race.
And Peugeot needed to as well, but thankfully, as my final pit-stop approached, I'd been eking out the gap we needed at between 1-2 seconds a lap over Montagny, who seemed to be struggling a little bit more with his tyre choice at that point in the race than I was. When I popped out after the splash and dash, I was still 25 seconds in front with only nine laps to go. That's when I could breathe. That was the first time I can honestly say to you that I knew the race was in our control. Up until that point, there was always that risk.
There was the risk of a mistake, there was a risk of a puncture at the wrong point, there was a risk of a yellow flag after they had made their final stop and we had still to do a splash and dash, there was the risk of getting caught in traffic, there was the risk of anything happening with the new Audi R15 TDI…
But with a few laps to go we reeled the laps off quite gently and won by 22 seconds, which was a superb result by the whole team; considering the preparation we've had, considering this is a brand-new car against the stiffest competition in the world of sports car racing.
Beyond the satisfaction of beating Acura and Peugeot, we've managed to retain the R8, the R10 TDI and now the R15 TDI’s record of winning on its debut in the Sebring 12 Hours. That’s the kind of history that lives in the history books forever.
And considering that our preparations were jilted a little bit by our car’s engineer, Howden Haynes, and our data engineer, Leena Gade, not being there for most of the race week due to illness, I think the mechanics and everybody that stepped up to the plate really did a superb, superb job. It was anything but ‘business as usual,’ and I’m extremely proud of them.
Now looking back after the chequered flag fell, Tom, Dindo and I sprayed some champagne from atop the car and into the flurry of camera flashes; we knew that Peugeot will be coming back very strong at our next meeting. We're going to have to work very, very hard between now and Le Mans to try and continue that winning success – to maintain our record.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going throughout the intervening couple of months, and hope you enjoyed the Sebring 12 Hours. It certainly was a classic.
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I have to say that as the hours wound down in Florida, as the race pulled to a close, I was simply amazed at the times you were putting down lap after lap...that was the best driving I've ever seen first hand.
Good luck at Le Mans!
" all the Best from Scotland " we know you can do it